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This issue is why I would never buy another traditional Android phone. The fact that three (or sometimes just two) years of OS updates are provided by the manufacturer, plus the fact that the bootloader is often locked, basically guarantees that even the best flagship devices of today will unnecessarily end up being trash within five years or so. These devices are computers, and they should be treated like computers. 16 comments
@mpanhans I’ve been using iPhones for most of my adult life. If I was going to get an Android phone now, it might be a Pixel. Those typically receive very good extended support from the community. Fairphone is appealing in theory, but I’ve been spoiled by flagship specs and I don’t really see myself wanting to compromise on quality for the sake of longevity. An iPhone gets you the good stuff plus the ~7 years of updates in some cases. @zak @mpanhans I agree with your statement that a mobile phone should last long - and stay secure. And that Apple is doing generally better than Google so far. I have started to look into alternative OS and recently I moved to /e/OS which has a desire to be updated longer than Google-Android. /e/OS is based on LineageOS, which is based on open Android. I use Samsung S9, it runs on /e/OS based Android 10 and is updated. /e/OS has just launched Fairphone 4 for US, from Murena. 1/2 @zak @mpanhans An alternative I am interested in is Volla phone with Volla OS, also an opensource Android fork I believe has a longer life than Google-Android. Furthermore, a "true" LinuxOS is of course very interesting, but probabaly Waydroid needs further development so critical Android apps works. Like Ubuntu touch on Volla phone, Librem 5 and more. But not really mainstream yet...! 2/2 @hehemrin Yep, I’m closely watching most of these projects. Some of them could work for me, but of course iOS is currently the easier option.  @zak Yep I’m on an iPhone 8 and I do give credit to apple for supporting this device for as long as they have. Am hoping to switch away at some point though once there are compelling enough alternatives @zak@infosec.exchange reminds me of the old @SwiftOnSecurity@infosec.exchange joke: whats the difference between android and windows vista? Vista got 10 years of security updates @zak Mobile phones are one of the most obvious and egregious examples of planned obsolescence, and I hate it. There's no economic incentive to encourage people to continue using the same hardware, and mobile service providers are now selling phones in hardware-as-a-service packages to boot. @zak @cinimodev That I don't know. But I will say that this is the case for most modern devices, even on the Windows end. Manufacturers aren't incentivized to update existing devices in any way, and so aside from the OS updates from Microsoft and drivers that component manufacturers provide, we very rarely see extended firmware updates for PCs. Android phones function much the same way, except without the benefit of driver updates. @cinimodev @zak For me, there's a blurry line here. On mobile, the firmware, i.e. rom is integrated with the Software - OS and above. This would include critical OS updates that could be done manually on a rooted/jailbroken phone e.g. rewriting the kernel file, to bootloader and SoC drivers (closer to firmware defined as program code living on mobo nonvolatile storage not part of the hard drive). The tendency towards FLOSS platforms allows for easier modding, but mobile tends the other way. @zak Recently, they shared updates schedule for Fairphone 3 in a conversation. Quarterly updates after 3rd year @zak Two years is on the high side of what you can get from a flagship-priced Android phone. Sony flatly refuses to promise even a single security patch for the Xperia 1 V (just released at $1400). |
Gregory's Server
@zak what do you daily drive? I’m in the US and saw that the fairphone 4 is now available in the US and was looking at it…